Adams admin sharpens rhetoric on MTA budget

City Hall warns of harm to the city’s ability to deliver services

BY CAROLINE SPIVACK

The Adams administration is ratcheting up its protest against kicking in an extra $500 million to fund the cashstrapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in a rare public dispute between Mayor Eric Adams and fellow Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul.

High-ranking members of the Adams administration have begun taking their pushback to a wider audience through TV news appearances while maintaining that the administration is hopeful for fruitful budget negotiations in the weeks ahead.

e mayor argued that the city is grappling with billions of dollars in unexpected spending for the migrant crisis.

the public advocate. e district attorneys of Manhattan and the Bronx are Black, as are the borough presidents of Queens and the Bronx. Remarkably, every Democratic county leader in the city outside of Staten Island is Black. And Hakeem Je ries, the Brooklyn congressman, was just elected House minority leader.

“It’s a watershed moment. Our political power—something that many of our ancestors struggled for, died for—is now reaching a zenith almost,” said Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president. e great rise of Black elected o cials in New York comes with a bittersweet dimension: e actual Black population in the city is diminishing as many working- and middle-class families leave their old neighborhoods, which have long been gentrifying. Housing costs have increased dramatically.

Black political power grew in New York

See WAVE on page 19

$500M

WHAT GOV. HOCHUL proposes the city kick in to salvage MTA nances e city currently commits about

“ at is too much money to be part of New York City’s budget,” Adams said on Fox 5, questioning why other municipalities that bene t from the MTA’s networks aren’t being asked to kick in at least some additional aid. “We are in a nancial crisis, and I have to be scally prudent to navigate us throughout this turbulent period,” Adams added.

See BUDGET on page 22